Hallelujah
Trial

Who they are

Tom Roberts, formerly of Cranebuilders. John Canning Yates, formerly of Ella Guru.

The songs started in a front room on a weekly ritual of tea, talk, a guitar and a piano, and they kept its shape.

In April 2026 they took them into the Gustav Adolf Church on Park Lane, the Nordic seamen’s church on the edge of the Baltic Triangle, and recorded the album live in the room across a residency. Nobody brought a reverb unit. What you hear around the voices is the building.

What it is live

A nylon-string guitar, a Nord Stage piano and three microphones. That's the whole of it.

They bring the piano themselves, so there's nothing for the house to supply beyond a PA and the inputs, and nothing to move at the end. They set up, line check and are ready in minutes. On a tight changeover that counts for as much as the music does.

Stage — two vocal mics · one mic on the nylon-string guitar · Nord Stage piano · four inputs required

The songs are built on space and they work best where the room can be heard: churches, chapels, arts centres, listening rooms and support slots in front of an audience that has come to listen.

They play at low volume by design. Put them on at eleven in a room with a busy bar and the thing that makes them worth booking stops working. Put them in front of a seated audience and the room does half the job.

Thirty minutes, forty-five, or a full set. Travelling from Liverpool.